India’s Modi visits Poland for top-level security and trade talks en route to war-torn Ukraine

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Poland for top-level security and trade talks before heading to neighboring Ukraine, which is at war with India’s strategic partner, Russia.

Modi will hold talks Thursday in Warsaw with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Andrzej Duda, which are expected to focus on security, especially in the region bordering Ukraine.

Ukraine chastised Modi for his visit to Moscow last month, when he met and hugged President Vladimir Putin. Modi has avoided condemning Russia while emphasizing a peaceful settlement to the war in Ukraine.

Poland’s deputy prime minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, who is also the defense minister, has said he counts on intensifying cooperation with India in various areas, including new technologies.

In a statement ahead of his arrival in the NATO and European Union member nation, Modi said Poland remains India’s key economy partner in Central Europe.

The Indian leader’s visit also marks 70 years of official bilateral relations between New Delhi and Warsaw, and comes 45 years after the previous visit by an Indian government leader, Morarji Desai.

According to the figures cited by the Embassy of India, from 2013-2023, the total bilateral trade value increased from $1.95 billion to $5.72 billion, with India’s exports accounting for majority of it.

On Wednesday, Modi is to lay wreaths at two monuments in Warsaw marking joint chapters of World War II. One of the monuments honors the “Good Maharaja” Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, who offered protection and care to some 1,000 Polish children evacuated from the Soviet Union to India from 1942-46, the other commemorates the joint effort in the 1944 Battle of Monte Cassino, Italy.

Modi’s statement said he is also to meet with representatives of the Indian community in Poland.

Then-Indian President Pratibha Patil visited Poland in 2009, and Tusk, during his first term as prime minister, paid a visit to India in 2010.

On Friday, Modi travels to Kyiv to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The trip to Ukraine comes a month after Zelenskyy criticized Modi’s two-day visit to Moscow in July, when he met with Putin on the day Russian missiles struck across Ukraine, killing scores of people.

Zelenskyy had described the meeting as a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts.” He also chided Modi for hugging Putin during their meeting.

India has avoided condemning Russia’s invasion and instead has urged Russia and Ukraine to resolve the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.